


A Long Comment for the Fallen Series

by AliceAmy



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: For the Fallen series, Other, This is a loooooooong comment which cannot be fitted into the comment box of AO3_(:зゝ∠)_
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 05:17:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11006769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceAmy/pseuds/AliceAmy
Summary: This is really a comment, but I do think that she did a great job in analyzing the work, so...anyway, presented with respect and love from your Chinese readers:), for Engazed.





	A Long Comment for the Fallen Series

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Engazed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engazed/gifts).



Hi, wish I didn’t disturb you during your creation process:) I’m here to deliver a reader’s feedback for your series works, The Fallen. Her comment comes as follow:

I’ve been pretty busy these days, yet one thing I’ve never forgot, that is to recommend The Fallen series to you (feeling your annoyance when I mention this work, but truly it’s gorgeous.

**I’ve chosen one of my favourite acts in the fanfiction, which I couldn’t recommend more. This act lingers in my mind for days, and I found it a must to share it with you readers and fanfic creators, to show you how a good fanfic could be.**

The act I’m going to talk about located at the end part of the second book of the series, The Slash Man, which mainly describes the healing and fighting of John and Sherlock after what had happened in book one, Ten Days. This act, I think, is the climax of the second book: Sherlock found the place where Slash man has been hiding in a heavily-snowed night, but actually the Slash man lured him there on propose to send him away from Baker Street. By the time he found the hiding place, John was left in 221B to face the Slash man alone, his most terrifying nightmare.

In this chapter, the author split the story into three parts: Sherlock and Donovan (they found the place, which is a trap, and tried their best to return to 221B on time), Molly and DI Lestrade (one of the bad guys went to Molly, but I’m not going to analysis this part of the story in detail), and John (the target of Slash man).

Tangled together, all three parts of the story made my nerve tenser and tenser.

> Three blind mice. See how they RUN!

The riddle Donovan received declared the beginning of the battle, and the bloody fight between John and Slash man is the focus of the battle. After his kidnap in the first book, John had experienced serious psychological damage, and there is no doubt that the sexual insult, or violence, so to speak, brought by the Slash man made John suffer most. The author as well spent a great effort in describing his pain as well as Sherlock’s, and them helping each other to ease the pain. John’s got a hard time, but he was getting better, the Slash man, however, caught him then, and when realising this, the readers shared Sherlock’s feeling, that is, if he hurts John again, John would break down and die, he’s got no other chance for healing.

> ‘You have to go faster. Faster, Sally.’
> 
> He was fumbling with his phone, staring at it like he didn’t know what it was.
> 
> ‘I can barely see, and the roads are shite. If I go any faster, we’ll never make it, understand?’
> 
> ‘Please, please,’ he said.
> 
> She gritted her teeth and pressed down on the accelerator.

‘Please, please,’ this word made me cry, for I was as scary as Sherlock, who, after rescuing John from Moran, protected him as if he’s his broken precious. John, however, was already damaged badly, and what he was facing then cannot be tackled by Sherlock, he had to deal it himself.

> Donovan snatched the phone from his hands and threw it at his feet. ‘Don’t!’ she said.
> 
> ‘Agh!’ Sherlock seized his hair in his fists and curled over his knees, screaming.
> 
> ‘We’ll be there soon, we’ll reach him.’
> 
> ‘Too late, it’ll be too late! Run, John, god please, run!’

By the time the Slash man had already entered 221B, and neither Sherlock nor God can help John, the only helper John had was himself.

As a fanfic creator, I believe most people, including myself have a hard time writing fighting acts. I had watched so many action movies, yet still I can’t write a detailed action act, and therefore I chose to skip them in my story, or otherwise only describe the final scene of the act, like this (translator: below written by the commentator herself):

> Slowly he walked to him, and idlily dodged the bullets shot by the enemy. The guy stepped backward in a panic, yet he’s got no way to go. The winter soldier reached him, twisted his gun with his left arm, while catching a handful of hair of the man in his right hand. Then he punched him, smashing him into something like jam and crumbs.

This is my way of writing an action scene, really a scene, bad:(

Yet the fight I’m going to share today was presented like a movie act. When I read the part of the story, I felt more like I was watching a movie, rather than reading a novel.

The fight could be divided into three parts: first one happened in Sherlock’s bedroom, second in the kitchen, and third in John’s room. Like all the movie, audience’s view followed the actors’ fighting.

> He passed through the open door to Sherlock’s bedroom and went straight to the window leading to the fire escape. But the window was barred, an extra security feature they had installed in the wake of the convent, and removing it would take time, make noise, draw attention. He didn’t dare.
> 
> The whistling was in the flat.
> 
> Don’t hold it back, dear Johnny, keen and moan.
> 
> In panic, he hid himself behind the open door, his body pressed to the wall. He clamped a hand across his mouth to silence his ragged breathing and leant heavily upon the cane. Not real not real not real. He thought to close the door, but there was no lock, and any movement, any sound would announce his location. He remained as still as he could, but the harder he tried, the greater his body trembled. He closed his eyes and focused on expanding his lungs, breaths in, breaths out, and he let his teeth sink into his finger to keep himself silent. Let Sherlock find me here, he thought. Let him explain to me about a power outage. Let him tell me there’s no one here, just him and me, at home, on Baker Street, just him and me.

So we could see that John hid into Sherlock’s room.

> By increments, he turned his head to peer through the narrow space between door and jamb between the hinges, to see the hallway. But his view was blocked. Even in the darkness, he could see a black eye looking back.
> 
> Suddenly, John was crushed: a large body had thrown its full weight into the door, slamming him back and against the wall, then again, then again. He grunted as his head rebounded between wall and door, and his cane clattered to the floor. But he was pinned, unable to move, not even to fall, not until the door was wrenched back and thrown into its frame with a resounding crash. Then John fell. He slipped down the wall, dislodged the framed poster of the periodic table, and collapsed upon his cane. When the frame hit the floor with him, the glass burst.
> 
> Two strong hands seized him where he lay, grabbing the back of his shirt and dragging him through the shards before depositing him in the centre of the floor, but not before John had grabbed the cane from under his body. Released, he rolled onto his back, and as the figure looming over reached down to grab him again, he swung the cane with all his might and heard it thwack against a skull. He saw the flinch, but the man made no sound. He swung again, but grounded, he couldn’t get proper leverage, not enough to seriously harm or debilitate or stop the man from getting what he had come for. On the third swing, the man caught the cane in the air and wrenched it from John’s grasp. He watched the cane lift high above the man’s head, and John threw his arms around his head and curled onto his side just as the wood came down against his ribs. He cried aloud at the eruption of pain.
> 
> He tried to find his feet, tried to position himself to run or to fight, but before he could even push himself to his knees, another blow fell across his back. He shouted again and fell upon his face. A third crack, as he was beaten with his own cane. Each blow was like fire, threatening to rend the skin and bruise the bone. The stiff, wooden shaft came down a fourth time across his back, a fifth, and on the sixth merciless strike, the cane broke against him, splintering in two. He moaned into the floor.
> 
> The pieces of wood clattered beside his head, dropped, and a foot wedged beneath him, rolling him over.

I don’t know how other people feel, but these paragraphs curved image in my mind, yet this is only the beginning of the whole fight.

> It filled him, charged him, and he flung himself into action, determined to get away. He kicked so hard at Daz’s shin that the man hissed through his teeth and fell back a step. John began to crawl away, but he wasn’t fast enough. Daz fell upon him now, flipping him once again onto his back, and straddled him across the thighs, effectively trapping him with his weight. Hot blood pumping through his veins, John seized one piece of the broken cane and with a shout rammed the jagged end hard in the giant man’s thigh. Daz made a grunt of annoyance, grasped John’s arm at the wrist, and twisted. John shouted and dropped the stick, yielding his weapon, but the man wasn’t satisfied. He rose up on his knees, loomed over John, and struck him hard across the face with a closed fist.
> 
> John’s vision burst into stars, and he knew that the only thing keeping his head from rolling across the room was that it was attached to his neck. He slumped into the floor, only distantly aware that Daz’s hands were at his belt, uncinching, tugging, unthreading, until the leather strap was free in his hands. Just as John’s sight was clearing, he saw Daz feeding the belt into itself, creating a noose.

Every act is continuous, and we could sense the trace of fight. The author spent a lot of word in this part, yet the limit space doesn’t allow me to show them word by word. John focused in his struggle, and he saw Harry, Mary, and Stamford in his vision, telling him he could not give up, he had to fight a way out of all these. But John cannot beat him, and he was almost there at the end of the first battle, yet John found a chance to escape.

If I was the writer, I would finish the scene by now, after all, it’s too hard to continue. And John had already escaped. Sherlock could have arrived at the time, or some other things may happen and saved the day.

But no, the author switched the prospects and started telling what had happened on Molly, Donovan and Sherlock.

When writing a fanfic, we all know that sometimes we can skip something, and use the simplest way to save the characters from danger, after all, both fanfic creator and readers know that the hero/heroin’s going to be safe, and the couple would all fell in love with each other and live happily ever after at the end of the story (except for those which have special warning at the beginning).

But we all know too well, that if we eye the fanfic in a more practical way, the result would be totally different.

And then the second battle began.

> He made it to the door just off the kitchen before Daz caught up with him, seized his arm, and swung him around and into the kitchen table. The table jostled. They knocked over beakers and flasks, pushed aside books, and glass exploded on the floor. John was pressed chest down across the table top, and Daz upon him. ‘Li’l fuck, li’l fuck,’ said the Slash Man in his ear. Something was wrong with his speech. With each syllable, John felt something warm spray the side of his face and dribble down his neck.
> 
> His brief escape had infuriated Daz. He was through with his games, his teasing. Now, with John pinned beneath him, he kicked his legs wide and tugged at his trousers, trying to get a hand down. John went limp, but only for a split second; then he thrust his head backwards, smashing it square into Daz’s nose, and he escaped from under the roar of pain and anger only to be snatched again at the sliding doors. Together, they crashed into the glass, and together they hit the floor. John fought ferociously. There was no time to feel the pain of wrenched arms or glass-sliced skin, no space to dwell on juddering bones or a mouth on fire. Instead, with every arrested breath and every beat of his throbbing heart, John battled for his life.

John ran away a second time, he ran to the staircase, but the Slash man caught him and kicked him from back and made him roll down the stair.

> Slower now, wheezing through his nose and trembling in every muscle, he rose to his elbows, and like a worm, edged forward, still trying to get down the stairs. Above him, he heard Daz’s heavy footsteps and wet, slurping breaths. The man was still coming for him, step by weighty step. And then his path was blocked.
> 
> With hands large enough to encase John’s full head, Daz slowly wrapped fingers around John’s throat, and lifted him at the head. Then, with painstaking determination, he turned back around and hauled John up the first flight of stairs by the neck. John choked, flailed, and fought, but this time, his efforts were in vain. Daz had turned to stone. When they reached the door outside the flat, he paused, still grasping John’s neck. Then he turned to the second flight and continued upward. The ammonia seeping from the gag was shooting up through John’s nose, threatening to drown him. Daz kicked open John’s bedroom door, dropped John to the floor, and slammed the door shut.

My dear friends! Can’t you see the moving camera? Can’t you see? I’ve already seen the director of the movie!

The third battle took place in John’s room, and is the most brilliant one.

There is paragraph writing about John’s mindset, and after sharing the fighting experience with John, the readers are as exhausted as he was, and lack of energy for another fight, what’s worse, we’ve been told that John had done his best, yet still he can’t beat his enemy, he gave up the hope.

> He should have known his efforts were futile. He should have known that, in the end, this was exactly where he would end up. He wanted to scream at the injustice of it all, at a universe that had beaten him into the ground throughout his life, a cruel fate that offered him the most desperate longings of his heart only to snatch them away from him at the last. I just got him back, he thought sorrowfully. When I lost everything else, I got him back. It’s not real, none of it has been real!

I was crying again when I read this. ‘I just got him back.’ He’s just got Sherlock back, John would never give up under such circumstance, never.

John, however, did not resist.

> The Slash Man lowered himself, slipped one hand under John’s knees, the other behind his neck, and lifted him like a child to set him on the bed. Then he turned him over onto his belly, as easy as pulling down the sheets. John was compliant and soon found himself face down in his own pillow. His hands were pinned close to his chest.

I thought the camera became closer, and we can see that while the Slash man doing the preparation and holding John’s hip in his hand, John slowly got the knife hidden there.

> With all the strength left in him, John flipped onto his back beneath Daz’s looming body. He brought his hands down hard over the man’s head, the butt of the knife setting Daz’s skull ringing. He kicked in, and his knee connected with Daz’s ribs, and he pushed off with the other leg. But Daz had seized hold of him again, and caught in John’s momentum, they rolled together to the edge of the bed. When John found himself on top, he flipped the knife around and, with the weight of his whole body, sank the blade down into Darren Hirsch’s stomach.

I was about to cheer! And loud applause to the author, because we could see the whole action, there is a beginning and an ending as well as the process. This is an act, my dear fellow! Aren’t you making movie?

And here again came a chance to finish the act. If it were me, I would stop writing here and make Sherlock arrive seeing John lying on the ground with the body of the Slash man on the side.

But master becomes master for a reason. The author didn’t stop here, yet presented the most essential part of the fight.

> For a moment, both men were still, Daz lying on his back with his arms around John, and John straddling Daz, curled over his body and around the knife. Then Daz reacted. He clawed at John’s back, his fingernails dragging long trenches through his skin and tearing through old scars as he twitched, writhed, and tried to throw John off. But John was immovable. And each time Daz came close to casting him aside, he thrust the knife again, twisted it in the wound, and forced Daz to be still. He thrust the blade repeatedly, never quite pulling out of the same entry wound, but changing the angle of each stab, the edge of the blade tearing to shreds his stomach organ and lower intestines with each plunge, deeper and deeper. He aimed for spleen and pancreas, crucial veins and the aorta, and thrust, thrust, thrust. The blood rushed out, but John pushed deeper still, past the guard, burying even the hilt. And even then, he twisted the blade.

It’s like everything still in the story, no psychological description, only John’s repeated actions. He was showing his pain through this way. And the emotion and pain of John had poured out during the process. Yet we readers didn’t get relief from it, only tears and choked breath.

> Daz stopped clawing. With one arm still wound round John’s neck, he pulled him close in a warped embrace, and his teeth sank down deep into the meat of John’s right shoulder with a moan. John didn’t even try to pull away. He leant into the bite instead. The room was eerily silent. John’s hands were filled with gore, and his breath was arrested in his chest; Daz’s throat was stopped up with blood.

You can’t imagine the feeling of John at that time, but only a sense of blankness can you feel.

> They stared at one another, victor and defeated, but one felt no triumph, and the other felt nothing at all.

Now the fight is over, and we the readers like John, lying there not knowing what to say and what to do.

But there is a little bit left. When Sherlock finally arrived, he stepped in to 221B, and automatically deduced the whole fight. You can imagine his horrible experience. Then he was led to John’s room by the evidence, and in detail the author described the terrifying scene in Sherlock’s prospective: John sat silently at the corner, socks gaged in his mouth with wire around it, and he’s got belt around his neck, noose on his wrist.

Sherlock was too trembled to release him, and he’s panic. Here comes the most tear-provoking conversation in the whole chapter.

> ‘Sherlock.’
> 
> John’s voice came as a breath.
> 
> ‘I can stop the bleeding, I promise, create a tourniquet. With my socks and shoelaces— Oh god, I’m sorry. Forgive me, John. Tonight. I should not have left, not for a minute, should have been here—’
> 
> John lifted both hands to Sherlock’s face, bracing him on either side, and kept him still.
> 
> ‘Do you see me?’
> 
> Sherlock blinked. Something shifted. The dark didn’t matter—those were John’s eyes. They were red and swollen and glistening with tears, but they were also bright, alert, and familiar, as John looked back at him, searching his face. One of his hands moved to Sherlock’s throat and applied gentle pressure. John was checking his pulse.
> 
> ‘Do you see me, Sherlock? Can you hear me?’
> 
> ‘Yes.’
> 
> ‘I’m here.’
> 
> ‘Yes.’
> 
> ‘Alive.’
> 
> ‘John.’
> 
> ‘Say it. Please.’
> 
> ‘You’re alive.’
> 
> John nodded. He smiled. But he couldn’t hold it. He dipped his head and began to cry. His hands clenched around Sherlock’s shoulders. ‘Take me out of here, Sherlock,’ he said. ‘I can’t feel my legs.’

These lines end the chapter, which starts from pain, and ends in John’s gentle comfort. John was tortured in the story, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he took his own life, yet he resisted, for himself as well as Sherlock. He’s so brave, so tough, so gentle, and it was the most respectful and brave John I’ve ever seen in slash story.

The series’ an outstanding work, and every character in the story – the DI, Donovan, Molly, Anthea – had been IC. There are also a lot of parts in the story which I enjoyed, but the most touching one is always concerning John…

Say, the reunification of John and Sherlock in the hospital TAT.

Say, Sherlock lingered in the hospital even John would not see him, yet even John was not willing to see him, he would ask the nurse if he’s still there.

When John was ready for the interview, he called Sherlock and the two of them sat beside a table. John didn’t look at him during the interview, but he knew exactly what Sherlock’s thinking, so did Sherlock. John knew that only Sherlock would ask about rape, and Sherlock knew why John called him.

When they protected Molly at her house, she hid in the shadow and watched Sherlock comforting John in his nightmare. I was in tear, just like Molly did.

And the hug they share in the snow, when the wind howling around them…

After all, this is the greatest fanfic I’ve ever seen. It’s long, painful and complicated…There are a lot of short sweet slash story, yet I’m an old-fashioned people who enjoy a practical story. This kind of story, however, would exhausts the author, or fanfic creator, yet everyone who create such a work deserve respect.

There are different writing proposes, but for me individually, I think this is the right way to write a story.

 

So her comment ends here, and I myself do get a few words to say to you as well. I'm actually a student learning translation, and my teacher had assigned a lot of works to us for practice, and I've read a lot of literature myself, but none of them brought the feeling that your works had brought me. I laughed and cried with the characters, hate they hate, love they love, and I was like, not only standing aside as an onlooker, but act in their position, this is a brand new experience for me when reading a fiction. Really, some of your Chinese readers even think that you are a professional writer LOL

And in the end, I'd say please tell us what will happen next sooner! All your Chinese readers're waiting for your story to go on, as well as the journey of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. And BTW, if there are any other long comments like this one, I'd happily translate them for you. 

P.S. Any fault of translation goes to me, Thank you sharing the work to us again:)


End file.
